Nude yoga benefits laid bare

PARTICIPANTS in two upcoming yoga classes on the Sunshine Coast will shed more than stress and tight muscles.

Yoga teacher Rosie Rees will hold a women's nude yoga class and a couples' nude yoga class at Phoenix Yoga, Maroochydore, on July 8 and 9 as part of a national tour. But don't get the wrong idea.

"It's not like you come in and you're buck naked and we start doing the downward dog - it's much more intimate," she said.

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Miss Rees said although some people were uncomfortable about being naked, the experience was often empowering.

"I have one woman who does my nude yoga classes regularly because normal yoga just doesn't cut it for her any more," she said.

The Perth-based yoga instructor and singles and relationships coach estimates between 500 and 1000 people have tried her nude yoga classes in the past two years.

She struck upon the idea after stripping off for a yoga session in the privacy of her backyard on a hot day.

"It was just such a liberating experience. I felt really free, not restricted, vulnerable - ecstatic, almost," she said.

Miss Rees said the women's classes were held in darkened, heated rooms, with candles glowing, and started with participants sitting on their mats and talking before easing off their sarongs and kimonos for yoga.

She said most women felt more comfortable with their bodies after doing a nude yoga class.

"They feel a higher level of self-esteem, they feel more confident, they feel more at ease with each other, and they definitely feel a sense of self-acceptance with their body," she said.

"We don't all look like the ideal woman. We're not all tall and skinny, with big boobs. We all have cellulite and rolls and wrinkles ... It starts with accepting that, and that helps us to love it."

Miss Rees said the nude yoga classes were suitable for beginners and not sexual.

The couples' classes, which she teachers with her partner Ares actually forced partners to talk to jointly complete the yoga exercises, she said.

"It's a really beautiful experience. It helps the couples communicate. The couples' class is more about building non-sexual intimacy," she said.